The first serially-produced Sibir nuclear-powered icebreaker, designed to reinforce Russia's leadership in the Arctic, was commissioned last week at the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg. It is one of the three vessels part of Project 22220 which are to become the world's largest and most powerful nuclear icebreakers. The lead ship of the project, the Arktika, was commissioned last year.

Sibir has a displacement of 33,500 tons and is 173.3 meters long with a beam of 34 meters, and has a crew of 75. It is powered by two nuclear reactors of 175 MW.

The richest man in Africa says crude oil prices would do Nigeria a favor if they stay lower for longer. Last week at the UN General Assembly, Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote, whose main business is in cement but also holds interests in agricultural commodities and petrochemicals, said that agriculture—not crude oil—is the way forward for Nigeria, and that Africa "will become the food basket of the world." The latest economic data from Dangote's home country tend to support his view. GDP grew by 0.55 percent in the…

The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a draw of 761,000 barrels in United States crude oil inventories, compared to analyst expectations that inventories would build by 3.422 million barrels for the week ending September 22. Gasoline inventories built for the first time in two weeks, by 1.470 million barrels for the week ending September 22, against an expected draw of 921,000 barrels. Both WTI and Brent benchmarks fell on Tuesday, but they were both still up over $2.00 week on week. WTI hit 7-month high yesterday at the close of trade,…

Kuwait is green-lighting the development of non-associated gas fields after seven years of delays, according to a new report by S&P Global Platts, in a move that would more than double the Jurassic field's non-associated gas production which has been static since 2010. The northern areas of the Gulf emirate will supply the gas-hungry Kuwaiti energy market with new supplies once tenders to build the new fields are fulfilled, the report said. Companies bidding on the engineering, construction, and procurement pieces of the tender have until…

British performance carmaker Aston Martin's chief sees his country taking a very unrealistic approach to dealing with air pollution. The UK government's July announcement that it will be banning the sale of petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles by 2040 is "meaningless" to Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer. Government officials are certainly not automotive engineers and are missing the mark, he said. "Policy makers should not try to be engineers," Palmer said. His conclusion was that the July announcement banning fossil…